The Hetch-Hetchy Valley. 219 



colors were then ripe, and the great god-Hke rocks in 

 repose seemed to glow with life. The artist, under their 

 spell, wandered day after day along the beautiful river 

 and through the groves and gardens, studying the won- 

 derful scenery; and, after making about forty sketches, 

 declared with enthusiasm that in picturesque beauty and 

 charm Hetch-Hetchy surpassed even Yosemite. 



That any one would try to destroy such a place seemed 

 impossible, but sad experience shows that there are 

 people good enough and bad enough for anything. The 

 proponents of the dam scheme bring forward a lot of 

 bad arguments to prove that the only righteous thing 

 for Hetch-Hetchy is its destruction. These arguments 

 are curiously like those of the devil devised for the 

 destruction of the first garden — so much of the very 

 best Eden fruit going to waste, so much of the best 

 Tuolumne water. Very few of their statements are 

 even partly true, and all are misleading. Thus, Hetch- 

 Hetchy, they say, is "a low-lying meadow." 



On the contrary, it is a high-lying natural landscape 

 garden. 



'Tt is a common minor feature, like thousands of 

 others." 



On the contrary, it is a very uncommon feature, after 

 Yosemite, the rarest and in many ways the most impor- 

 tant in the park. 



''Damming and submerging it 175 feet deep would en- 

 hance its beauty by forming a crystal-clear lake." 



Landscape gardens, places of recreation and worship, 

 are never made beautiful by destroying and burying 

 them. The beautiful lake forsooth would be only an eye- 

 sore, a dismal blot on the landscape, like many others 

 to be seen in the Sierra. For, instead of keeping it at the 

 same level all the year, allowing Nature to make new 

 shores, it would of course be full only a month or two 

 in the spring, when the snow is melting fast; then it 

 would be gradually drained, exposing the slimy sides of 



